Gigabyte Z390 Gaming X Review: Budget Board Bliss?

LordVile said:

Or you could just get a Z370 board? Also why would ANYONE buy the 9600k? It's a 6c Chip with no HT. You can get a 6c/12t R5 for just over half the price with a b450 board that goes for under 100. Or you could get a 3600 with for less than the 9600K with a board for the same price for the set and have features like PCIE 4. Literally the only reason to buy an intel platform now is the Adobe suite to use the iGPU for rendering and 240Hz gaming because in everything else AMD has either caught or exceeded intel at a lower price.

What's still available for Z370? The Z390 is basically Z370 with integrated USB3 Gen2. And I don't know why anyone would bring AMD processors into a Z390 motherboard discussion.

Crashman said:

What's still available for Z370? The Z390 is basically Z370 with integrated USB3 Gen2. And I don't know why anyone would bring AMD processors into a Z390 motherboard discussion.

Z370 boards are also cheaper and not advised for the higher end chips like the 9900K.

Because the only thing you can put into a Z390 board is a 8th or 9th gen intel CPU. For the board reviewed, it's decent. It's not great, you could get a lot more for not much more investment. AMD is brought up because very few people should actually buy intel chips at the current time. For most tasks the much cheaper R5 2600 and a B450 board would do fine and for not much more you can get an X570 board and a ryzen 3000 series chip which for a start the 3700x is over £100 cheaper than the 9900K, the R9 3900X which demolishes the 9900K in productivity is the same price once you factor in the cooler you have to buy for the 9900K and all down the stack AMD is the cheaper and better option. The 3600 6c/12t for 200 vs the 6 core 6 threaded 9600K at 220 again without a cooler. The 9700k is 365 for 8 cores where the 3700x has 8 with SMT for 320 but includes a cooler. Intel chips are too expensive for what they are, they offer no HT against AMD chip that do, AMD has caught up on IPC even though speed is still capped about 0.5Ghz slower, they are more energy efficent and have implemented new tech like PCIE 4 that Z390 boards don't have.

Doesn't matter how "good" the board is if the platforms position is untenable to everyone who doesn't need quick rendering times on adobe premiere.

Crashman said:

And I don't know why anyone would bring AMD processors into a Z390 motherboard discussion.

It's clearly relevant to look at all available products, not just one particular ecosystem, especially when "budget" is brought up. It's a bit of a stretch to consider a 9600K, Z390 motherboard and a capable cooler as a good "budget" offering.

LordVile said:

Also why would ANYONE buy the 9600k?

Some may be primarily interested in lightly-threaded performance for the specific software they run. But while a 6-core, 6-thread 9600K might currently run the vast majority of games and applications rather well, it's probably not going to hold up as well over time. And if that leaked roadmap for Intel's 10th-gen processors is to be believed, and they enable hyperthreading across their lineup to match AMD on thread count for their next CPUs, the 9600K may only be i3-level performance by around the end of the year, and the new i5s may perform more like the current i7s. The pricing just doesn't make much sense now. Once you figure in the cost of a capable cooler, it's priced within reach of an 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 3700X, which in terms of multithreaded performance is most comparable to an i9-9900K, let alone the much lower-priced 6-core, 12-thread 3600.

As far as gaming performance is concerned, with most common graphics card / resolution pairings, the slightly better per-thread performance of a 9600K is arguably not worth giving up SMT for, especially when you are paying a premium for it. For most gaming systems, the added cost of a 9600K over a 3600 would likely be better put toward graphics hardware.

cryoburner said:

It's clearly relevant to look at all available products, not just one particular ecosystem, especially when "budget" is brought up. It's a bit of a stretch to consider a 9600K, Z390 motherboard and a capable cooler as a good "budget" offering.

Some may be primarily interested in lightly-threaded performance for the specific software they run. But while a 6-core, 6-thread 9600K might currently run the vast majority of games and applications rather well, it's probably not going to hold up as well over time. And if that leaked roadmap for Intel's 10th-gen processors is to be believed, and they enable hyperthreading across their lineup to match AMD on thread count for their next CPUs, the 9600K may only be i3-level performance by around the end of the year, and the new i5s may perform more like the current i7s. The pricing just doesn't make much sense now. Once you figure in the cost of a capable cooler, it's priced within reach of an 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 3700X, which in terms of multithreaded performance is most comparable to an i9-9900K, let alone the much lower-priced 6-core, 12-thread 3600.

As far as gaming performance is concerned, with most common graphics card / resolution pairings, the slightly better per-thread performance of a 9600K is arguably not worth giving up SMT for, especially when you are paying a premium for it. For most gaming systems, the added cost of a 9600K over a 3600 would likely be better put toward graphics hardware.

Wouldn't really believe Intels roadmaps at this point anyway. 10nm was supposed to be due at 8th gen which was what 2018? Doubt they put HT on the i5's though cos then they'd need HT on the i7 which means they'd have to bump the core count on the i9 and then they'd have thermal issues when trying to hit 5Ghz which is their only selling point right now. Unless they get 10nm out I don't see what intel could do to compete with AMD other than dropping prices which they seem reluctant to do. They have inferior products throughout the stack for higher prices (for the majority of applications) and people seem to just be buying them cos of intel inside or just pure fanboyism/lack of common sense because the 9900K might net you however much more FPS over a 3700X with a 2080Ti but the vast majority of people do not have a grands worth of GPU and with a say 2070 you might be within margin of for the 2080Tin is 200FPS over 180 FPS really worth the extra 100+ in cost? I mean that's another TB of SSD storage there, a good mech keyboard or headphones

cryoburner said:

It's clearly relevant to look at all available products, not just one particular ecosystem, especially when "budget" is brought up. It's a bit of a stretch to consider a 9600K, Z390 motherboard and a capable cooler as a good "budget" offering

Sorry, that's a generalization that has nothing to do with this topic.

First timer here. Just need a little clarification.

"the Z390 Gaming X really needs a fan to be very close to its CPU socket just to keep the voltage regulator from throttling back the CPU under heavy loads."

Don't exactly know what this means for my build.
I plan on using my PC solely for Audio production. I will likely NOT be overclocking the cpu.
My setup will consist of an:
i5-9600k (using integrated graphics rather than dedicated GPU)
Hyper Evo 212 cpu cooler
Meshify C case with the stock front and rear 120mm fans + an additional 120mm fan in front.
Would this setup provide enough air flow to prevent cpu throttling?

As a side note:
I will be using a WD Blue 500gb NVMe ssd boot drive.
Should I install this in the top M.2 connector, with the heat spreader, or the bottom location?

Also I have already purchased a Seasonic Focus Gold 550w PSU, which does not have the extra
4-pin, 12v connector for the cpu. I believe I won't need the extra power if I am not running a GPU card or overclocking the cpu. Am I right in making this assumption? Or, do I need a PSU with the
8 pin and 4 pin power connectors to power the cpu?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I don't really know what I'm doing.